Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/?s=seidenberg)
As we approach Israel’s 70th birthday, Rabbi David Seidenberg, reminding us that peace requires more than inclusion, revises the traditional prayer for the State of Israel so that “our prayer for peace [is] a prayer that teaches peace.”
April 17, 2018 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2018/04/17/israel70-fixing-the-way-we-pray-for-the-state/“And isn’t that the problem and lesson of Purim as crafted by the rabbis? The evil and the good in our real world, (…) aren’t they bewilderingly transactional and sometimes interchangeable?”
March 2, 2018 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2018/03/02/the-next-haman-beauty-pageant/I. We have three Pharaohs in our Torah. The first Pharaoh, less memorable, receives Abraham and Sarah and then sends them away. The second, the good Pharaoh, is the one who raises Joseph from imprisoned slave to ruler over all Egypt. Only the third one, who did not know Joseph, is called “melekh chadash,” “a new king” – new because he inaugurated a radically new political order.
February 3, 2017 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2017/02/03/a-new-king-inaugurating-resistance-along-with-a-president/During the High Holidays, we strive to fashion our heart to become a dwelling place for God in the physical, earthly realm, a dirah batachtonim. However, the earliest aggadic (storytelling) midrash, Genesis Rabbah (4th or 5th century), taught that “the root/essence of God’s presence was in the lower creatures / `iqar Shekhinah batachtonim haytah.” (19:7)
If the Shekhinah, the indwelling presence of God, was essentially in all creatures, how did we arrive at the idea that the primary dwelling place of God was within the human heart?
What seems to have been missed in past rabbinic interpretation of bal tashchit is that the rule given in the Torah is both literally and fundamentally about sustainability – about what sustains you: “Don’t destroy the sources that nourish your lives over generations for the sake of a moment’s need, no matter how dire that need is.”
September 8, 2016 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2016/09/08/bal-taschit-whats-wrong-with-the-jewish-law-against-destruction-and-waste-commentary-on-this-weeks-torah-portion-shoftim/Every year at my boy’s school there’s a Chanukah concert that includes rap songs and other talent.
December 10, 2015 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2015/12/10/banu-choshekh-lkadesh-sanctifying-darkness-seeding-the-light/We present to you our online-access features from the print magazine, like Peter Gabel’s plan for transforming the justice system, as well as web-only exclusives from Marc Gopin, Candace Mittel, and Michael Lerner and Cat Zavis—plus poetry and book reviews!
October 2, 2015 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2015/10/02/settle-into-fall-with-these-crisp-online-features-from-tikkun/Pope Francis believes that our generation is very much involved in “the pains of childbirth” as we try to learn anew how to cooperate with the Creator, that “God … can also bring good out of the evil we have done” (80) since the Holy Spirit is so powerfully creative. There lies his hope and ours, that we can change our ways, that we are endowed with immense intelligence and creativity, that if we pull out of denial and away from destructive economic systems and relationships and beyond a dulled consciousness anything is possible. Or, I might add, citing eco-philosopher David Orr, “Hope is a verb with the sleeves rolled up.” We can go to work, and we must.
July 6, 2015 https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2015/07/06/pope-franciss-encyclical-and-the-coming-of-age-of-creation-spirituality/UPCOMING CONFERENCE CALL
Monday, August 4th — 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT
Sami Awad will be speaking to us from Palestine on the Israel/Gaza War.